Chapter Text
Rhaenyra drummed her fingers upon the table as she thought for a moment, contemplating how best to counter her opponents’ acquisition of her king.
In a traditional game of chess, the taking of the King would mean the game was over, but in the games they played, they amended the rules to suit their sensibilities, making Kings move like Queens and Queens move like Kings and switching the value of the two pieces as well.
As two women, two Queens — or rather a Dowager Queen Consort and an Empress — what better avatar could Rhaenyra and Alicent have?
After all that was how a king worked, not as a traditional chess piece but as an avatar, a place holder, for the player themselves.
When Rhaenyra was a child, she asked her father why a king was not the most powerful piece in the game. He explained to her that Jaehaerys told him that the king is powerful in other ways — the King commands his subjects and tells them where to move, but the king himself can only move as far as his feet can take him — therefore, the king’s piece is merely a representation of the players body on the board and when the king dies the player dies in the game as well. But, despite the king seeming weak by the limited places he can move, the power of the King to command his subjects lets him be in sixteen places at once and move like a rook, a septon or a knight twice at a time, move like a pawn eight times over, move like a Queen and move like a King.
Therefore, Rhaenyra and Alicent made the Queens their avatars on the field, for that was what they were and Rhaenyra had duplicated the process when she played chess with Princess Rhaenys as well.
Alicent sat across from Rhaenyra at a small round table in Alicent’s tower chamber, her well-furnished prison cell while she remained a political prisoner in the Empire of Valyria.
A gilded cage in truth, but Rhaenyra had done her best to make sure she was content.
Her needs were met when she requested things, she was aloud to leave her chamber but was restricted to where she could go and always followed by armed guard and Rhaenyra regularly visited her and sometimes brought Daenys whom she adored or Gaemon who she had become very attached to, but Rhaenyra forbid her from ever revealing anything to Gaemon about his lineage.
Three years ago, when Rhaenyra, Daemon and Rhaenys were shown the Conqueror’s Dream and enlightened to how inescapable the Song of Ice and Fire was and how one day, the coming darkness in the North would bind together the fate of all Targaryens, both Black and Green, Valyrian and Westerosi.
To mend the bonds between her and her brothers and break down the barriers, it was Rhaenyra’s hope — though perhaps a vain hope — that Alicent might prove a vital tool to repairing their bonds, if used properly.
Given all the bad blood between them, sometimes Rhaenyra wondered if the kindness she showed Alicent was genuine and if she was truly finding reconciliation with her friend or if in the depths of her heart where she dared not look she deep down believed there was true ending the strife between them and what Rhaenyra was presenting was merely a farce, a deception necessary to steering Alicent to aid the healing between the children of Viserys.
Rhaenyra hoped such was not true, for she did not wish to carry such hate in her heart without hope of closure and peace.
“Your move, Rhaenyra,” Alicent reminded the Empress as she rested her elbows on the table and interlocked her fingers, a confident glint in her eyes.
“Don’t rush me. Unless you’ve seen something you're worried I’ll spot,” Rhaenyra suggested.
“Or perhaps you're just stalling. You only have a limited amount of time with me before you must tend to your Imperial Council,” Alicent teased.
Rhaenyra smirked and reexamined the board.
Finally, she settled on a move and took the septon piece and moved it diagonally on the board to take Alicent’s knight and put her in check.
“Well, I’m afraid my hands are tied in such matters. It will be a busy week with the wedding tomorrow,” Rhaenyra explained.
“Yes, I’ve heard a great deal of chatter about it all on my visits to the palace gardens and the sept. I hear it is going to be a grandiose spectacle, one to far surpass the Golden Wedding itself,” Alicent replied, quickly moving her ruling queen piece to rook two, removing herself from check.
“If you wish, I could still put you in the attendance in the Jaesrion for the ceremony… and find you seatings at some of the feasts and games,” Rhaenyra suggested.
Rook to queen’s rook three. Check again.
Alicent released a gentle laugh.
“Come now, Rhaenyra. Do not patronise my understanding of politics after all these years. You may keep your generous offer of attendance, as much as it is only a formality. To put me in any of the wedding festivities is to put yourself in a great deal of aggravation and exhaustion. Everytime I leave this chamber, no matter how closely stalked I am by my guards, I feel the damning glares of your vassals and your household upon me, the unwelcome interloper from the court of the Greens. I know to be anywhere near your children’s wedding is to invite spite and scorn and any who I would be seated amongst would surly take insult at my presence which you would have to deal with. Therefore I shall formally decline your offer if only to spare you your sanity, Rhaenyra,” Alicent declared.
Septon to rook three. Check escaped once more on Alicent’s part, blocking her queen from Rhaenyra’s rook with her septon.
“Well, you’ll be able to see plenty of the festivities from your chamber. The streets will be filled with music and celebration,” Rhaenyra declared, glancing past Alicent’s shoulder to the open doors of her balcony-like terrace overlooking the city and the whole of the valley of the Dragonlords.
Rhaenyra then took Alicent’s blocking septon with one of her own, but Alicent countered, moving her rook to septon four.
“I take no pleasure in making you a pariah of my empire, Alicent. Though I shall admit that there was a certain sweet vindictiveness that came from you receiving such disdain after so many years spreading insults of bastardry against my sons and I, yet that little vengeful pleasure lost its flavour a while ago,” Rhaenyra admitted as she took Alicent’s rook with her own.
“Hmm… I know the feeling well. In previous years, I was too high and mighty to admit it, but I did take pleasure in shaming you and your sons in my resentments towards you. Even the desecration of Targaryen heraldry and valyrian tapestries and frescos in the Red Keep was meant to spite you upon your inevitable return in a form of small and subtle vengeance for Aemond’s eye. It was my intent to damn you by making you feel an outsider in your own home when you saw it styled to Oldtown rather than to its natural state,” Alicent replied, taking Rhaenyra’s attacking rook with one of her pawns.
Septon to septon seven.
King takes knight pawn, putting Rhaenyra’s Queen in check, but she quickly slid it into the corner of the board at rook one.
“I like to think we’ve since outgrown our old fueds. Perhaps all the ugliness of those twenty years we spent warring amongst ourselves with allies, marriages, rumors and slights could have easier been resolved had we simply just waged our war on a board such as this,” Rhaenyra suggested.
Alicent smirked at such a notion.
“The fate of the Iron Throne to be decided not by lines of succession, great councils or a king’s assertions but instead by a game of chess. A far more civilised idea I agree, though I fear that might have all but guaranteed your own loss of the throne,” Alicent gloated as she moved her king forward five squares, taking one of Rhaenyra’s defending pawns and leaving her queen trapped beneath two pawns.
Mate in one, or so Alicent believed.
“I’m afraid you’d be wrong on that account,” Rhaenyra declared, moving another piece.
Septon to septon seven, checkmate.
Alicent was so focused on the tantalising notion of putting Rhaenyra’s queen in checkmate that she removed her king from being able to protect her queen and forgot that it was Rhaenyra’s septon that was blocking her rook from the queen.
After realising her error, Alicent smirked and turned away, shaking her head with a smile on her face.
“Good game,” Rhaenyra asserted as she leaned back in her chair smuggly.
Alicent softly threw her hands in the air in surrender.
“It appears your skills as a chess player have sharpened equally to your skills as a swordswoman,” Alicent complimented, making light of Rhaenyra’s other vocation.
Since becoming Empress, Rhaenyra had long felt that she needed to project more strength as a leader, not just as a ratifier of laws but also as a commander of legions and to that end, she had given herself to a great deal of study in military history and taken up the pursuit of learning arms.
An hour in the morning and an hour at night almost every day for the past three years.
Shortly before Daenys’s birth, Rhaenyra had her cousin, Maekar of the Smithing Guild, craft a pair of fresh-forged valyrian steel swords as heirlooms of authority for the future Emperors and Empresses of Valyria.
Anogarys, the bastard sword, was granted to Daemon as the sword of the Emperors, meanwhile, Miliqelos, the arming sword, was taken up by Rhaenyra as the sword of the Empresses.
After recovering from the birth of Daenys, Rhaenyra began training in swordcraft under her Dragonknights and learning the skills necessary to wield her blade.
She would never be a great swordswoman, she might not even be a good swordswoman, but she would be adept at least, and she would not be helpless if danger lurked her way.
None could say of Rhaenyra that she carried Miliqelos around like a decorative sceptre as her father did with Blackfyre. In Rhaenyra’s hands, her sword would be a tool of war just as it would if it were grasped by any man.
Sometimes, Rhaenyra would look up to the tallest towers of the palace and see Alicent spying from her balcony as the Empress trained with her knights in the arts of warfare.
“If you wish to test your own skill, then perhaps I could have you brought down to the courtyards and grant you a wooden sword if you would fancy it?” Rhaenyra suggested.
Alicent scoffed, seeming to think Rhaenyra was jesting of such matters and perhaps she was a bit.
“Forgive me, but while you seem to have taken a liking to combat, my view on clanging swords about remains a tasteless and barbaric affair,” the hostage Queen dismissed.
“I dismissed it with such simplicity myself when I first began my practices, and Ser Harrold took my legs out from under me for my hubris. In truth, swordcraft is much the same as chess; anticipation and misdirection, though with the added exhilarance of agility and danger,” Rhaenyra replied.
“Well, after seeing my brothers Arland and Garth run about in circles chasing each other with wooden swords as Gwayne tried to settle them, all swordsmanship just looked like needless violence to me,” Alicent responded.
Rhaenyra recalled being there with Alicent as a child, watching her brother spar in the bailey of the Red Keep with the Master-at-Arms.
That would have been shortly before Alicent’s brothers were sent back to Oldtown to squire and page for their uncles and cousins.
In Rhaenyra’s recollections, during the years since Alicent’s brothers departed for Oldtown, their visits to King’s Landing and her own visits to Oldtown were few and far between.
Rhaenyra recalled that the last time she had seen any of Alicent’s brothers was when Arland and Garth visited King’s Landing for Aemond’s second nameday, and Rhaenyra also remembered Alicent visiting Oldtown to attend the funeral of her uncle, Lord Hobert Hightower.
If Alicent saw her brothers again after that, during the years when Rhaenyra and Daemon dwelled on Dragonstone, she could not say.
Alicent had told Rhaenyra that her eldest brother Gwayne was in King’s Landing serving as Commander of the City Watch, but as far as Rhaenyra knew, Alicent had not seen her other brothers in years.
“I… imagine you miss them quite deeply,” Rhaenyra said hesitantly, trying to offer comfort to Alicent if it was needed.
Alicent paused for a moment with a melancholic look upon her face.
“I miss them all. My brothers. My father. My children… yet I cannot leave,” Alicent declared as she looked sharply at Rhaenyra, for it was the Empress who kept Alicent reluctantly concealed in her hidden empire, far from her family.
It was true; Rhaenyra was the source of the ire Alicent felt in her imprisonment. It was by Rhaenyra’s will alone that Alicent was kept from her family while they were left to think her dead, and while she did not take pleasure in Alicent’s situation, she did not regret it.
Rhaenyra’s Empire was still a fledgling yet to take flight, she needed more time.
Rhaenyra had once told Alicent to expect ten years before she might see home again, but in recent revision, Rhaenyra believed that should the productivity and growth of their Empire were to maintain its current course of the past three years, then in the next two to four years, she might be released.
Yet if not, then that was what fate would have for them, as Rhaenyra was unwilling to compromise the safety and prosperity of the empire for Alicent’s sake alone, nor would she be expected to make such a sacrifice.
“Yes well… some things can’t be helped,” Rhaenyra stated, arresting Alicent’s contemptuous commentary of her confinement.
Before their friendly game of chess could devolve into argument — which they had had plenty of over the past three years — a sharp knock on Alicent’s chamber door came.
“Come,” Rhaenyra called out before Alicent had a chance to speak, reminding the hostage who was in charge between the two of them.
Rhaenyra turned her head to see Ser Harrold Westerling emerging through the door.
“Your Majesty. Your Grace,” the old knight greeted.
“What is it Ser Harrold?” Rhaenyra asked.
“Forgive my intrusion, but we are expected at the council soon, Your Majesty,” Ser Harrold explained.
Rhaenyra sighed and nodded her head.
“Forgive me, Alicent, but it seems I must be off,” Rhaenyra declared, rising to her feet, but Alicent would not even look at her in acknowledgement, once again pouting in misery at her condition.
Rhaenyra rolled her eyes and departed but stopped in her tracks a few paces from the door.
The Empress was easily flustered by Alicent’s arbitrary bitterness at her imprisonment, which came and went whenever she pleased over the past three years, but if Rhaenyra were kept from her own children for so long against her will, she might be the very same.
“How about I bring Gaemon to see you tomorrow?” Rhaenyra asked, offering an olive branch.
Alicent turned to meet Rhaenyra’s gaze with gentle vulnerability in her eyes.
“Your Majesty,” Alicent said respectfully as she bowed her head, and in those two words was both a thank you and a good day but also an apology for her impertenence.
Gaemon may have been a lowborn bastard, unrecongised by Aegon with the lustful drunkard probably not even remembering Gaemon’s mother’s name let alone knowing of his existence, but Alicent — who had expressed to Rhaenyra and her children her disgust for bastards — had grown to treasure Gaemon more deeply than anything else in Valyria.
Daemon suggested that perhaps Gaemon’s dragon made him more appealing to Alicent, but Rhaenyra knew that she was merely clinging to the only family she had in the entirety of the Empire.
With Alicent left contented, Rhaenyra departed the chamber and descended the many flights of stairs in the tower.
After leaving the tower where Alicent was being kept, they continued on through the palace to the chamber of the Imperial Council.
On her way to the chamber, she was joined along the walk by Grand Wisdom Gerardys, dressed in grey robes with a stole of heavy fabric marked with valyrian glyphs and his old maester’s chain around his neck, now repurposed as a loremaster’s chain.
Under his arms were several scrolls and books bundled together.
“Good day, Grand Wisdom,” Rhaenyra greeted.
“Your Majesty. Ser Harrold,” Gerardys greeted in reply as he joined them on their approach towards the council chamber.
“Can I offer to lighten your burden?” Rhaenyra offered with her hands outstretched, seeing the books and scrolls in her advisor's arms.
“Oh, no, it’s quite alright,” Gerardys replied, reshuffling his scrolls and books to a more comfortable position in his arms.
“So what prey tell will the topics for today's council meeting be?” Rhaenyra asked as she walked with Grand Wisdom Gerardys, who gently laughed in reponse.
“Mostly just finalising the finishing touches for the wedding tomorrow. We’ve taken care of most everything else to free up time so that we might put all our focus on the festivites,” the old wisdom explained.
The long expected wedding was near at hand and tomorrow Jace and Baela would take their vows in the Jaesrion before the priests of the Gods of Valyria.
It was because of the wedding that Baela would be absent from the council meeting, observing the rituals and blessings of a dragonlady at the Jaesarion.
The Valyrian Cult had been growing in followers and clergy since their arrival in Valyria, but the priests were yet to resurrect every single faset of the multiple sects and divisions of the Valyrian faith.
In the time of the Freehold, the matremonials ceremonies of the women of the forty dragonlording houses would be handled by a sect of priestesses called the sisters of Meleys, acolytes of the goddess of love.
But there was not yet any sisters of Meleys, so the Shrykosi Maidens imitated their duties for Baela’s prenuptial ceremonies.
The Shrykosi Maidens were an collegium of six virgin priestesses in service to the Goddess Shrykos. They practiced rites, prayers and rituals and were regarded as the six most prominent preistesses in Valyria.
They were a cultural fixture in the Faith of the Freehold, spiritual figureheads, idols of purity and prosperity.
It was said that their virtue and their spirituality were the pillars upon which Valyria’s glory rested and so long as they remained faithful and resplendent, year after year Shrykos, the Goddess of change, transition and the turning of the years, would give her favour to Valyria with every year that passed.
After the Doom, the Shrykosi Maidens were among the many attributed for the calamity with baseless claims of them failing in their duties as priestesses and falling to corruption — of course — but such stories were not but baseless scapegoats.
In any event, the order of priestesses had been reformed from six fair and youthful maidens who had fallen in love with the Faith of the Fourteen Flames. Three of them were silver-haired descendants of Valyria born commoners on Dragonstone and Driftmark, while the others were converts from the Faith of the Seven in Westeros.
Empress Rhaenyra, Ser Harrold and Grand Wisdom Gerardys arrived at the Imperial Council Chamber, where a pair of onyx black valyrian sphinxes sat sejant upon pillars.
Inside the chamber was a long stone crescent table consisting of two parallel long arms stretched out on either side, similar to a horseshoe.
The table was styled the same as the old council table they used when they held council in Telos at the Empire’s infancy.
In the alcoves around the chamber were statues of the great valyrians of old, as well as examples of leadership watching over them as the council deliberated, both legendary leaders of the Freehold and Targaryen Dragonlords and Kings.
Valyrion the Founder, Perganon the Great, Matavar the Wise, Rahaegarys the Mighty, Aenar the Exile, Gaemon the Glorious, Aegon the Conqueror and Jaehaerys the Conciliator, to name a few.
Lord Lysandro Rogare, the Imperial Treasurer and Lord of Draconys, as well as Princess Rhaenys, were already in the chamber waiting for them, though not yet seated.
Princess Rhaena was there too as the Imperial cupbearer, pouring wine for twelve members of the council — their thirteenth and fourteenth being Ser Harold and the sorcerer Raegoth, neither of whom drank for very different reasons and their absent fifteenth being Baela.
“Your Majesty,” Lord Lysandro greeted in High Valyrian as he turned and bowed to Rhaenyra upon her entry with Rhaenys and Rhaena mimicking his greeting by bowing their heads.
It was by Rhaenyra’s own choice to make it mandatory that whenever they held council meetings, they spoke in High Valyrian.
The next to arrive in the chamber soon after Rhaenyra was Lord Gunthor Zobrilion, Imperial Conservator and Lord of Telos.
When he first came to Valyria as one of Rhaenyra’s vassals, his family name was Darklyn, but like many other houses, they took new valyrian names.
When Rhaenyra first named Lord Gunthor as Lord of Telos, there was a bit of unease amongst her essosi vassals with stronger valyrian ties who questioned an Andal house being made lords of one of the seven cities. But in truth, the Darklyns had their own roots in Valyria in their annals.
Gunthor’s mother’s grandmother was a Targaryen and Gunthor’s nephew and heir, Robert Zobrilion, was married to one of Bartimos Celtigar’s granddaughters in recent years and the Zobrilions would hopefully become a pure-blooded valyrian house in the generations to come, possibly of dragon riders.
After Lord Gunthor, the next to arrive was the Imperial Ambassador, the elderly Lord Simon Doronton — his house name formerly being Staunton in Westeros.
Then came Lord Gormon Massey, the Imperial Jusitcar, accompanied by Bartimos Celtigar, the Imperial Magistrate and Lord of the city of Rhylos.
The last members of the council all came in one after another in a small cluster.
Lady Mysaria, the White Worm, the Imperial Spymistress; Lord Corlys Velaryon, the Imperial Chancellor, Grand Admiral of the Imperial Navy and Lord of Aquos Dhaen; Master Raegoth, the Imperial sorcerer; Crown Prince Jacaerys, the Heir to the Empire; and lastly Rhaenyra’s husband, Emperor Consort Daemon, Warmaster of the Imperial Legion.
Once the entire council was assembled, they took their seats around the table with Rhaenyra sitting in the tallest spined chair at the head.
“Good day, my lords and ladies. Shall we begin today's proceedings?” Rhaenyra suggested as she pulled in her chair and Rhaena brought over her cup of wine.
All the councilors nodded in agreement, and the council meeting began.
“Now, we all know what the primary focus of this meeting will be; tomorrow’s wedding between our Dārilaros Jakaerys and Dārilaros Baela ,” Rhaenyra announced.
The councils banged their hands on the table in applause for Jace as he smiled gleefully about tomorrow’s ceremony.
“Tomorrow, almost all the lords and ladies from all the palaces, towns and cities of the peninsula will be gathered in the Jaesrion for the ceremony. Is everything prepared?” Rhaenyra asked.
“It is, Dairorys. I went to the Jaesrion myself earlier today. All arrangements have been made,” Lord Gunthor assured them.
“And the prizes for the games?” Rhaenyra asked, looking to her treasurer.
“Everything has been collected from the vaults and ready for the winner. Competitions in jousting, chariot racing, horseback racing, melee, gladiatorial games, wargames and beast fighting. For each event, the winner will be awarded one hundred āeksiaposse, and the runner-up will be awarded fifty āeksiaposse,” Lord Lysandro recounted.
Aeksiaposse were one of the three main coinages in the Empire. An āeksiapos was a gold coin, a gēliapos was a silver coin, and a brāediapos was a bronze coin. One āeksiapos was worth thirty gēliaposse and one thousand four hundred and seventy brāediaposse, while one gēliapos was worth forty-nine brāediaposse.
A simplistic economic system of Lord Lysandro’s design and a good start for the Empire’s monetary developments.
“If I may, Your Majesty. There seems to be an issue in regards to the seating arrangements for tomorrow night’s wedding feast. It seems the Vezojenys and the Pendaerys families refuse to sit together. Apparently, back when the Vezojenys were still called House Sunglass, members of their house slew kinsmen of the Pendaerys in the Stepstones when they were still a lyseni house,” Lord Celtigar interjected.
“There is also the matter of the members of four other lesser faiths brought to the Empire from the Free Cities requesting that representatives of their clergies be seated equally with the representatives from the Faith of the Seven and the Worshipers of the Red God,” Grand Wisdom Gerardys added.
Rhaenyra rolled her eyes and rubbed her temple at the childish pettiness her nobles and clergymen were subjecting the council’s time too, but nonetheless, it was her duty to handle such matters as Empress.
The council continued to discuss the small matters for hours more as they prepared for tomorrow’s wondrous occasion of the Imperial Wedding.